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THE Books of Kings and Chronicles form the main source for the History of the Kings of Israel and Judah. They require, however, to be supplemented, especially for the later kings, by a careful study of the Prophetical Scriptures, particularly of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Amos, Micah, Habakkuk and Zephaniah. Local colouring, the life and manners of the time, and the feelings of those contemporary with the events described, are derivable almost wholly from this latter source, which furnishes them often in tolerable abundance. The “Antiquities” of Josephus supply less material than might have been expected, and the character of all additional material derived from this quarter requires to be weighed in the scales of a careful and sober criticism. Considerable light is thrown on the history of some of the kings by contemporary notices contained in the monuments of Egypt and Assyria. It has been the endeavour of the writer, so far as the limits of space allowed, to make full use of all these various sources of information. His labours have been much lightened by the excellent work done by many of his predecessors in the field of Sacred History, as especially by the writers of the articles on the several kings in Dr. Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” Kitto’s “Biblical Cyclopædia,” Winer’s “Realwörterbuch,” and Ersch and Grüber’s “Cyclopädie.” He is indebted also largely to the graphic and brilliant narrative of his lamented friend. Dean Stanley, whose “Lectures on the Jewish Church,” though on some points they “give an uncertain sound,” contain the best account of the Divided Monarchy which at present exists in the English language. Ewald’s “History of the People of Israel” has been also consulted throughout, but more sparingly used, the writer’s absolute rejection of the miraculous rendering him an untrustworthy commentator on a period of history wherein, according to the original authorities, the miraculous played a prominent part.

Rehoboam

THE Court of Solomon, whereat Rehoboam was brought up, has been described in a former volume of this series. A place where such wealth, such luxury, and such unrestrained polygamy were rife, was not a school apt for the formation of a strong or self-reliant character. When it is said that Rehoboam grew through boyhood to manhood in the atmosphere of an Eastern harem, enough is said to account for all that followed. In a harem princes, waited on by obsequious eunuchs, and petted by their mother and her female slaves, pass their time in softness and idleness, without any training worth the name, without the spur of emulation; flattered, fawned upon, courted; encouraged to regard themselves as beings of a superior kind, who can scarcely do wrong, who are to be indulged in every desire, and every fancy, and are never to be checked or thwarted. A judicious father shortens as much as possible the duration of this time of trial, early sending his sons out to the wars, or giving them civil employment, or at any rate removing them from the gynæceum, and placing them under the direction and guidance of carefully chosen tutors and instructors. But Solomon, from the time that he fell away, is not likely to have been a judicious father, or to have greatly troubled himself concerning the training of his children. There were no wars to which he could send them, and he seems not to have employed them in civil government. Rehoboam, so far as appears, grew to manhood as a mere hanger-on upon the Court, the centre of a group of young men brought up with him (I Kings xii. 8), and eager to flatter his foibles. The enforced idleness of an heir apparent, in all countries, and especially in the East, constitutes a severe trial to all but the best balanced natures, and too often leads to those evil and dissipated courses which are the great peril of youth at every period of the world’s history. We are not perhaps entitled to conclude absolutely, from the many passages of the Proverbs where the evil doings of young men are rebuked, that Solomon is actually glancing at the conduct of Rehoboam, or using the expression “My son” in any other than a general sense; but still the frequency and urgency of the remonstrances naturally raise the suspicion that—in part at least—a personal motive underlies them. As a personal element appears distinctly in what the wise king says (Prov. iv. 3, 4) of his own education and instruction, so it may well be that the keen reproofs and reproaches addressed to the “foolish son” are barbed by a personal sentiment of regret and disapproval.

It does not appear that Rehoboam during his youth had any special guide or instructor. No one is indicated as standing to him in the relation in which Nathan had, apparently, stood to his father.1 The prophet Shemaiah, who was the mentor of his later life,2 received no mission to “speak to him” until he was king. The chief share in his early education, if it may be allowed the name, must have been taken by his mother, Naamah. Now Naamah was an Ammonitess (I Kings xiv. 31). She was one of those many foreign women, “princesses” (ibid, xi. 3), whom Solomon took to wife very early in his reign, and who ultimately “turned away his heart,” so that he became an actual worshipper of false gods. It was for her, principally, that he built the High Place to Molech, or Milcom, on the hill that is over against Jerusalem, directly in front of the Temple, that is, on the northern crest of Olivet. According to the Septuagint translators,3 she was the daughter of Hanun, the king of Ammon, with whom David had the war provoked by the ill-treatment of his ambassadors (2 Sam. x. 1-14). Her influence over her son can scarcely have been for good. Brought up an idolatress, we cannot blame her that she remained one till her marriage and the transference of her residence to Jerusalem; but her determined adherence to the bloody rites of Molech after full acquaintance with the religion of Jehovah, indicates a moral blindness and a hardness of heart, which would make her a most undesirable instructress of youth. We can scarcely doubt but that she took her son with her when she attended the worship of Molech in the sanctuary built by Solomon for her use on the Mount Olivet, and introduced him to a knowledge of the bloody, and probably licentious,4 rites of the Ammonite religion. The strong leaning towards the worst forms of idolatry which Rehoboam showed soon after mounting the throne is not surprising in one subjected to the influence of such a mother at the most impressible period of human existence.

It is not recorded that Rehoboam had any brothers; but we can scarcely suppose that he was without them. Solomon’s wives numbered, at the least, seventy;5 and it would be preposterous to imagine that they were all sonless. Among the “young men that grew up with him” (I Kings xii. 10) were doubtless several who stood towards him in the near relationship, if not of full brother, at any rate of half-brother. These persons would naturally be among his earliest and most intimate companions. Brought up under the influence of their several mothers, as he of his, they would lean to their mother’s cults, and practically impress upon him the syncretism, which was Solomon’s idea of religion in his later life. Rehoboam can scarcely have looked on Jehovah as more than a local god, entitled to the respect of the Israelites, and to a continuous worship in the splendid temple which Solomon had built in his honour. But his own personal leanings would seem to have been towards the foreign rites which his father had established upon Israelite soil,6 and which possessed for the Israelite mind a curious fascination. We do not know, however, that, as prince, he had any great opportunity of showing his predilections, or that he shared at all in the direction of affairs under his father. The impression left by the Scriptural narrative is, that, down to his father’s death, he lived a mere courtier’s life, a life without serious aims or stirring circumstances.

But a time came when there suddenly devolved upon him a great and most serious responsibility. Solomon died at an age which could not have greatly exceeded sixty,7 and Rehoboam, at the age of forty-one, found himself recognized as the natural heir to the crown, and successor to his father’s kingdom in its entirety. At first no voice was raised to dispute his title, no arm was lifted to oppose him. The news indeed of Solomon’s death had brought back from Egypt a discontented and ambitious refugee, who had a certain number of adherents, and who may have entertained hopes of pushing himself into notice, if trouble or difficulty should arise in connection with the transfer of sovereignty. Jeroboam, who had fled to the Court of Shishak, or Sheshonk, king of Egypt, on a mere charge of cherishing treasonable intentions, naturally returned to his own land, as Moses had done (Exod. iv. 19, 20), when the king who sought his life was dead, and attended the gathering which was to give popular sanction to a succession universally regarded as natural and proper. The gathering was held at Shechem, the chief city of Ephraim, whether by Rehoboam’s appointment, or by a spontaneous movement on the part of the tribes, is uncertain. It is perhaps most probable that Rehoboam designated Shechem as the place for his inauguration in a conciliatory spirit, hoping thereby to gratify the Ephraimites, and secure their support and favour. But his concession was by some interpreted as weakness. The oppressive rule of Solomon during the later years of his reign, the heavy taxes which he imposed upon his subjects for the support of his Court (1 Kings iv. 7-23), and the forced labour which he exacted from them, had given rise to general discontent, and “the government of the Wise King had become as odious to the Israelites as that of the race of Tarquin, in spite of all their splendid works”—and indeed partly on account of them—“was afterwards to the inhabitants of Rome.”8 We may be sure that the crafty and unscrupulous Jeroboam fomented the popular ill-will; and it was probably in consequence of his machinations, that, on the meeting of the Tribes, their complaints were formulated, and delegates named—Jeroboam being among the number (1 Kings xii. 3)—to carry them to the king, and plead for a redress of grievances. “Thy father,” said their spokesman, probably Jeroboam himself, “made our yoke grievous; now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke that he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee.” The abolition of forced labour, and a reduction of taxation would, so far as appears, have contented them; they had no thought of revolt; they probably expected that their very moderate demands (as they considered them) would be cheerfully granted, and that the young king would be glad to purchase the popularity which most princes desire on their coronation day by the making of a few promises, which need not perhaps be altogether irrevocable.

The young king perceived, or those who were about him suggested to him, that the matter was one which required deliberation. Prerogative was in question, and prerogative is naturally dear to kings, nor have there ever been wanting, at any time or in any country, sticklers for prerogative among the hangers-on of a Court, more loth to yield one jot or tittle of it than the kings themselves. Persons of this class no doubt pointed out to Rehoboam that it was no light matter than was in question, but really the very character of the monarchy Solomon had won for himself the privilege which the Great Monarchs of the East have always enjoyed, and which was at the time possessed and exercised by the kings both of Egypt9 and of Assyria,10 the privilege of exacting from their subjects as much forced labour as they pleased—was his successor to surrender the right the moment it was objected to? If he did, might not further demands be made? Might not the royal power be gradually cramped and limited, until it became a mere shadow, and ceased to secure to the nation the benefits with a view to which it had been set up?11 At any rate, the subject was one for grave debate; and it was probably felt to be a quite reasonable reply, when Rehoboam returned answer to his discontented subjects that he would communicate to them his decision on the third day (1 Kings xii. 5).

Rehoboam is said to have first asked the counsel of the old men,12 the “grey-beards” who had acted for many years as his father’s counsellors, and who might be expected to have derived from their contact with the “wisest of men,”13 and from their long experience of affairs, something of that calm spirit of true worldly wisdom, which had characterized a large part of Solomon’s rule. Their advice was that he should adopt a mild and conciliatory tone, that he should “speak good words,” yield, at any rate, to some extent, or seem to yield, and thus please the malcontents, who, they ventured to say, would be peaceable and tractable subjects thenceforth, if they seemed to themselves to have got their way under the existing circumstances (ibid. ver. 7). The advice was probably not palatable. At any rate it was not taken. Rehoboam turned to the younger men, the men of his own standing—bold spirits, who had none of the timidity of age, and who might well seem to him more competent interpreters of the temper of their own day than persons who belonged to a generation that was just dying off. The young men were imbued with all the contempt for popular demands, and all the pride and insolence of a narrow and exclusive aristocracy. Their counsel was that Rehoboam should not yield an inch. A fool was rightly “answered according to his folly.”

“Thus shalt thou speak unto them,” they said: “My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins. Whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with cat-o’-ninetails.”

It was rash and foolish counsel; but the king followed it. He “forsook the old men’s counsel that they had given him, and spake to the people after the counsel of the young men”—“roughly,” rudely, cruelly (vers. 13, 14). Not only, they were told, should there be no alleviation of their burdens, but the weight of them should be aggravated. Rehoboam’s “little finger should be thicker than his father’s loins.” It was a proud, fierce, foolish answer; and the consequences were such as any man of moderate prudence might have anticipated. Disappointed and disgusted, the multitude burst out into the cry —

“What portion have we in David?

Neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse:

To your tents, O Israel —

Now see to thine own house, David!”

The tribal spirit was strong among the Hebrews. The supremacy of Judah had never been otherwise than grudgingly accepted. Reuben, Ephraim, Manasseh, perpetually kicked against Judæan sovereignty. Thus there was always a latent discontent, which any breeze might any day blow into a flame. At this time Rehoboam’s silly threats were the spark which fired the train, and produced a sudden explosion. On hearing them all the tribes excepting three burst out into open revolt. Judah remained firm in its allegiance to the house of David; Benjamin, satisfied with the distinction accorded it by the emplacement of the capital within its borders, threw in its lot with Judah; Levi, thoroughly content with its grand position at the head of the religion of the kingdom, gave its sympathies to the Davidic cause, and ultimately gravitated to the southern kingdom. But Reuben, which claimed the right of the first-born; Ephraim, which had given to the nation Joshua, the conqueror, Deborah the Prophetess, and Samuel, the last and the greatest of the judges; Manasseh, which shared largely in the glories of its brother tribe, Ephraim (Gen. xlviii. 19; Deut. xxxiii. 17); Zebulun, which “sucked of the abundance of the seas” (Deut. xxxiii. 19); Gad, which “dwelt as a lion” (ibid. ver. 20); Dan, the “lion’s whelp” (ibid. ver. 22); Issachar, the “strong ass couching down between two burthens” (Gen. xlix. 14); Naphtali, the “hind let loose” (ibid. ver. 21); and Asher, the dweller in the far north, threw off the Davidic yoke, declared themselves independent of Judah, and proclaimed their intention of placing themselves under a new king. Still failing to appreciate the situation, and imagining that compromise was even yet possible, Rehoboam resolved on one more effort to prevent the disruption, and sent an envoy—no doubt with an offer of some sort of compromise—to his revolted subjects; but, with the wrongheadedness which characterized all his proceedings at this period of his life, he selected for envoy one of the persons most obnoxious to the malcontents—no other than his father’s chief director of the forced labours which were so unpopular—Adoram or Adoniram (1 Kings xii. 18; 2 Chron. x. 18). The rebels seem to have considered that this was adding insult to injury; and, without waiting to hear the terms which Adoniram had to offer, they threw him down and stoned him to death. Deeply shocked, and alarmed for his own safety, Rehoboam mounted his chariot, and quitting Shechem fled hastily to Jerusalem.

The Tribes proceeded to elect a king, and to constitute themselves a separate state. The condition of things was re-established which had prevailed after the death of Saul, when David reigned over Judah in Hebron, and Ishbosheth over Israel in Mahanaim. But Rehoboam was not inclined to submit tamely to this defection. From Jerusalem he sent out his mandate throughout all Judah and Benjamin, summoning to his standard the men of war of both tribes, and succeeded in gathering together an army of 180,000 men, with whom he proposed to effect the subjugation of the rebel kingdom (1 Kings xii. 21). An internecine war would have broken out; but at the decisive moment, Shemaiah, the great prophet and historiographer of the day (2 Chron. xii. 15), received a commission to interpose, and in the name of God commanded Rehoboam to lay aside his purpose, disband his troops, and remain at peace with his Israelite brethren. “The thing,” he said, “was from God.” God had rent the kingdom of Solomon into two parts to punish Solomon’s idolatries (1 Kings xi. 33), and it was vain for man to attempt to oppose His will. The disruption, decreed in the Divine counsels, must take effect, and it was true wisdom, as well as true piety, to acquiesce in it, and seek to make the best of the new situation established by the new circumstances.

The situation was critical. The northern kingdom, even if left to itself and not made the object of an organized attack, would necessarily be a hostile kingdom, and would require careful watching, and the perpetual maintenance of an attitude of defence. But this was not the worst. It would be supported by a southern kingdom of very much greater power, which might at any moment exchange a passive support for active intervention, and which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to resist. Egypt, which had protected Jeroboam from the hostility of Solomon (1 Kings xi. 40), would be likely to lend him effectual aid if invited to do so, and under the energetic rule of an ambitious prince, who had founded a dynasty, might even aspire to resume, on her own account, the rule of Asiatic conqueror which she had laid aside for so many centuries. Awake to these perils, Rehoboam, after his return to Jerusalem, lost no time in strengthening the defences of his kingdom, more especially in the quarters which were most open to invasion from Egypt. He “built cities for defence in Judah” (2 Chron. xi. 5), “fortifying the strongholds, and putting captains in them, with store of victual, and of oil and wine” (ibid. ver. 1 1). Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa, Beth-zur, and Hebron, upon the south Shocoh, Adullam, Azekah, Gath, Lachish, and Mareshah towards the south-west, Zorahand Aijalon on the west, were “made exceeding strong” (ibid. ver. 12); ample provisions and a goodly supply of spears and shields were laid up in them, and all that was possible was done to check the progress of an invader from Egypt, should one appear.

Three years of peace followed. The only notable occurrence during this tranquil interval was the gradual exodus of the Levites from the northern kingdom, where they were subject to indignities, and their concentration within the territorial limits of Judah and Benjamin, where they were respected and honoured. This exodus was followed by that of many pious Israelites, who disliked Jeroboam’s religious innovations, and were attached to the worship of Jehovah, as established by David and Solomon. The northern kingdom was thus continually weakened and the southern one strengthened (2 Chron. xi. 13-17), to the great dissatisfaction of Jeroboam, who proceeded to cast about in his mind for a remedy, and ere long came to the conclusion that his best course would be to invoke the aid of his Egyptian ally against his troublesome neighbour.

Meanwhile the religious corruption introduced by Solomon was spreading itself widely among the people of the southern kingdom, unchecked by the king. “Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done. For they built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree. And there were also Sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel” (1 Kings xiv. 22-24). Rehoboam himself, as the author of Chronicles tells us (2 Chron. xii. 1), “forsook the law of the Lord,” set an ill example to his subjects, and then “all Israel forsook Jehovah with him.” The seductive rites of Phoenicia, the bloody rites of Moab and Ammon were preferred to the simple solemn ceremonies of the Jerusalem Temple; altars blazed on every high hill; emblems of Baal and Astarte were set up; frantic orgies absorbed and depraved the religious sentiment of the people; the national shrine was comparatively deserted; Judah “went a-whoring” after the gods of the nations, and practised abominations which it is impossible to describe, or more than hint at. By the fifth year of Rehoboam’s reign, the apostasy had reached its height, and provoked God to inflict on His people—even on the beloved tribe of Judah—a terrible punishment.

In the web of mundane events woven by the hand of God, the threads of worldly policy which men spin are taken into account, made use of, and given their appropriate place. The needs of Jeroboam, the ambition of Sheshonk to cover his own name with glory, and strengthen his dynasty by conciliating to it the affections of the military class, were made to fall in with God’s purposes, and help to work them out, in due season, when the fitting hour was come. From the date of Solomon’s death Sheshonk had been biding his time, waiting for a summons from Jeroboam, who would best know when he could most effectually strike. In the fifth year of Rehoboam’s reign, just when the apostasy of Judah was complete, the summons came, and Sheshonk hastened to obey it. Levying an army of twelve hundred chariots, sixty (perhaps six) thousand horsemen, and footmen “‘without number “(2 Chron. xii. 3)—Lubim, Sukkiim, and Cushites—he marched into Judæa “in three columns” (Brugsch), and attacked the cities which Rehoboam had fortified with so much care. A poor resistance was made. Afraid to encounter his assailant in the open field, Rehoboam shut himself up within the walls of his capital, and left the provincial towns to defend themselves as they best could. Probably the greater number surrendered at discretion. A few were besieged and taken, as Shoco, Adoraim, and Aijalon. Meanwhile the trembling king, awaiting his foe at Jerusalem, was upbraided by the prophet Shemaiah for the sins which had brought the visitation upon him, and warned that God had determined to deliver him into the hands of Sheshonk. In this strait he “humbled himself” (ibid. ver. 6), acknowledged that he was justly punished, and deprecated the extreme anger of Jehovah. The “princes of Judah” joined in his submission. Hereupon Shemaiah was instructed to tell him that his self-humiliation was accepted, and that on account of it, God would “grant him some deliverance” (ibid. ver. 7). Sheshonk should not take him prisoner, but he must submit and become Sheshonk’s servant, that he might learn the difference between “serving the Lord” and serving a heathen suzerain. The result was in accordance with this intimation. Sheshonk encamped before Jerusalem, but instead of forming the siege, consented to accept a ransom. Rehoboam gave him all the treasures of his palace, and all the treasures of the Temple, including the shields of gold which Solomon had made for his body-guard (1 Kings x. 16, 17; 2 Chron. xii. 9); and Sheshonk, content with this booty, and with a submission which can scarcely have been more than nominal, marched his army away to further conquests.

The remainder of Sheshonk’s campaign belongs rather to the history of Israel than to that of Judah, and will be considered when we treat of the reign of Jeroboam.14 Rehoboam’s reign, after the retirement of Sheshonk, was uneventful. He continued to occupy the throne for twelve more years, and during this time was engaged in frequent, if not in continual, hostilities with Jeroboam (1 Kings xiv. 30; 2 Chron. xii. 15), but no important results followed, and it can only be said that the two kingdoms maintained their relative positions. In military strength they were not ill-matched, since, if Israel could bring more men into the field, the narrower limits of Judah made her able to concentrate her troops more rapidly, while the personal qualities of the men of Judah and Benjamin placed them in the front rank of Hebrew warriors. Thus, notwithstanding the invasion of Sheshonk, and the loss of strength which it must have occasioned, the southern kingdom held its ground firmly, though it can scarcely have continued to maintain any hold over the alien states upon its borders, such as Philistia and Edom, which David had subjugated, but which, probably from the date of Sheshonk’s invasion, recovered their independence.15

The domestic relations of Rehoboam were modelled on those of his father, but without reaching the same excess of Oriental luxury and self-indulgence. The number of his wives was eighteen, of his concubines either sixty or thirty.16 Three of his wives were his near relations, Abihail, the daughter of Eliab, David’s elder brother; Mahalath, his first cousin, the daughter of Jerimoth, Solomon’s brother; and Maachah, another cousin, the daughter or grand-daughter of Absalom.17 Abihail and Maachah bore him, each of them, four sons, while his other wives raised the number of his sons to twenty-eight, and his daughters are said to have been sixty (2 Chron. xi. 21). His favourite wife was Absalom’s granddaughter, Maachah, whose son, Abijah, succeeded him on the throne; she was probably of royal birth on both sides, descended from her namesake, Maachah (2 Sam. iii. 3), daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur.

Rehoboam, remembering the dreariness of his own idle youth, was careful to give his sons active employment. As they grew to manhood, he dispersed them among the various provincial towns, assigning to each a charge, and at the same time an establishment. The writer of Chronicles considers that, in so doing, he acted wisely (2 Chron. xi. 23). The system which he adopted was certainly calculated to prevent, or minimise, jealousies among the princes, and to benefit their characters by giving them duties to perform, instead of making them idle hangers-on upon a Court.

Maachah survived her husband, and was Queen-mother during the next two reigns.18 Her influence over the kingdom was altogether for evil, and we may, perhaps, ascribe much of the wrong conduct of Rehoboam to the sway which she exercised over him. Her leanings were altogether towards idolatry. Rehoboam’s character was weak and irresolute. He seems to have had warm affections, and to have been capable of making good resolutions under good advice (2 Chron. xi. 4; xii. 6); but he had no stability of purpose, and his last counsellor generally determined his actions. We are told, that “he did evil, because he fixed not his heart to seek the Lord” (ibid. xii. 14). There was no fixity about him; it might have been said of him with justice, as it was said of Reuben (Gen. xlix. 4), “unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.” Now a suppliant at the feet of Jehovah, anon an encourager of the people in the worst forms of idolatry (1 Kings xiv. 22-24; 2 Chron. xii. 1), now submitting himself to Shemaiah’s influence, presently letting Maachah rule his conduct and his policy, he failed to set either himself or his people in any good way, and is in a great measure answerable for the halting and hesitating line pursued by the kingdom of Judah through the four centuries of its existence, a line fluctuating between good and evil, between religion and irreligion, gradually deteriorating, and at length terminating in a practical apostasy (2 Chron. xxxvi. 14.-16).

1 On this relation, see Dr. Farrar's remarks in "Solomon, his Life and Times," pp. 8, 9.

4 Compare "Solomon, his Life and Times," pp. 146, 147. The Molech of Ammon corresponded closely with the Chemosh of Moab, one of whose names was "Ashlar Chemosh" (Moabite Stone, line 17), showing him to be the male principle corresponding to the female Ashtoreth, or Astarté.

5 The "seven hundred" of I Kings xi. 3 is probably an accidental corruption of "seventy."

10 This is not exactly demonstrable, but may be concluded from the vast palaces of the later Assyrian kings.

16 The present text of Chronicles (2 Chron. xi. 21) has "sixty," but Josephus ("Ant. Jud." viii. 10, § I) gives the number as "thirty."

17 She is called the daughter of Absalom in I Kings xv. 2, 10, and in 2 Chron. xi. 20, but in 2 Chron. xiii. 2 her designation is "Michaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah." Probably Uriel had married an actual daughter of Absalom's.

Abijah

OF Abijah,1 the son and successor of Rehoboam, very little is known. His mother was Maachah, the daughter, or probably rather the granddaughter, of Absalom, and was Rehoboam’s principal and favourite wife. Her leanings were towards idolatry (1 Kings xv. 13), and any influence which she may have exercised upon her son is likely to have been towards evil. Rehoboam’s affection for Maachah caused him, not only to designate Abijah, her eldest son (2 Chron. xi. 20), as his successor, but to put him at a very early age in a position of authority over his brethren (ibid. ver. 22), and to give him an establishment on a scale of Oriental magnificence. Abijah, we are told (2 Chron. xiii. 21), “waxed mighty, and married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons, and sixteen daughters.” He was probably of full age at his father’s accession, having grown to manhood during the later years of Solomon, at a time when female influence of an evil kind was predominant, and when there was little scope for manly virtues. When his father came to the throne, there was an improvement in his surroundings. He was given a position of responsibility,2 and no doubt bore a part in those wars which occupied so large a portion of the reign of Rehoboam. He must have been a witness of the invasion of Shishak (Sheshonk), have seen the environs of Jerusalem blackened by the Egyptian, Libyan, and Ethiopia host, and have shared in the fears and participated in the humiliation of his father (2 Chron. xii. 6-12). He is likely to have taken an active part in the protracted and desultory war which was waged between Rehoboam and Jeroboam “all their days” (1 Kings xiv. 30). When, upon the death of his father, he found himself king, he seems to have at once determined on a desperate effort to subjugate the kingdom of his neighbour, and so bring the schism between the Ten Tribes and the Two to an end. He “set the battle in array with an army of valiant men of war” (2 Chron. xiii. 3), who are estimated at 400,000, but was met by Jeroboam with twice the number, and brought into extreme danger. According to the writer of Chronicles, the Judæan king, like a Homeric hero, from a station upon Mount Zemaraim, a little south of Bethel, delivered a long address of rebuke and exhortation to the enemy, as the hosts faced each other ready for the conflict. He recalled the circumstances under which David was given the kingdom over all Israel (ibid. ver. 5); the rebellion of Jeroboam (ver. 6); the institution of the idolatry of the calves; the rejection of the legitimate priesthood and the institution of an illegitimate priesthood in its place (vers. 9, 10); and contrasting with Jeroboam’s novelties the steadfast adherence of Judah to the rites and ordinances laid down in the Law3 (vers. 10, 11); he made an appeal to the Israelites to desert the standard of Jeroboam, and “not fight against the Lord God of their fathers;” if they did so, he assured them they “would not prosper” (vers. 12, 13). It does not appear, however, that any effect was produced by this harangue. Jeroboam, wholly untouched by it, made the best disposition of his troops that was possible; his troops neither deserted, nor relaxed in their efforts, on account of the invitation addressed to them. Such was the Israelite preponderance in numbers, that it was found possible to send a large detachment to the rear of the Jewish camp, and then to make simultaneously a double attack, from the front and from behind (vers. 13, 14). The men of Judah resisted bravely, but were in great distress, when the aid of God being implored with great earnestness amid the trumpet blasts of the priests, suddenly the tide of battle turned—Judah was successful, and Israel was put to flight (vers. 15, 16). A terrible carnage followed. According to the existing text, the slain on the part of the Israelites amounted to 500,000 men; but the numbers in our present Book of Chronicles are in many instances exaggerated, and it is generally agreed that the original reading in this place was probably not 500,000, but 50,000. Even this was an enormous loss; and we can well understand its having led on to the conquest of several Israelite towns, as Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephraim, which passed for a time under the dominion of Judah (ver. 19). Abijah’s triumph was, however, followed very shortly by his death. The length of his reign is said in one place to have been “three years” (1 Kings xv. 2); but as he ascended the throne in Jeroboam’s eighteenth year (ibid, ver. 1), and was succeeded by Asa in the same king’s twentieth year (ibid. ver. 9), the real duration of his reign cannot have much exceeded two years. He “walked,” we are told, “in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him; and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father” (ibid. ver. 3). Though the formal worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem was not interfered with, but continued with all its legal and customary rites (2 Chron. xiii. 11), yet side by side with it numerous other worships were tolerated (2 Chron. xiv. 3); and the general condition of the nation in respect of religion was probably very much the same under Abijam as under Rehoboam. Certainly the high-place worship continued without interruption until the reign of Asa; and with this were combined image worship (ibid. ver. 5), altars to strange gods, and ashérah worship, which was a form of the cult of Astarte. Abijah, in fact, would seem to have instituted no religious changes at all; but to have been content with the laxity which had prevailed during the reign of his father.

1 Two forms of the name are given, Abijah and Abijam. The latter is probably an intentional change (Lightfoot), resembling that of Beth-el into Beth-aven and of Jehoahaz into Ahaz.

3 It was natural, but scarcely honest, that be should make no allusion to the other worships allowed in Judah beside the worship of Jehovah, both by his father (I Kings xiv. 22-24) and by himself (2 Chron. xiv. 3-5).

Asa

ASA, the son of Abijah and grandson of Rehoboam, is a king whose reign offers a strong contrast in almost every respect to those of his father and grandfather. In length it exceeded every other Jewish reign excepting two.1 In a military point of view it was distinguished, and in the matter of religion its character and tendency were directly opposite to that of the two reigns immediately preceding it. Asa was brought up under circumstances which seemed à priori most unfavourable to the production of a pious, earnest, and zealous monarch. Having Abijah for father, and Maachah for grandmother, and directress of the Court, he must have been subjected to a host of powerful influences drawing him towards the side of laxity and idolatry, while it is difficult to see what counter-influences could have been brought to bear upon him, or how he could have escaped entanglement in the prevalent latitudinarian vortex. The suggestion has been thrown out that he owed his religious enlightenment to the efforts made by two prophets of the period, Hanani and Azariah, the son of Oded,2 faithful teachers of the true religion then resident at Jerusalem. But very little is known of these prophets; and there is certainly no proof, that, during the impressible years of boyhood, and early manhood, Asa was brought into contact with them. Still, the “Schools of the Prophets” were undoubtedly at work under Solomon, Rehoboam, and Abijah, labouring to counteract the pernicious Court influence, and to impress on all, to whom they could obtain access, the importance of maintaining a strict observance of the ancient faith. Asa, if he did not come into contact with Azariah or Hanani at the court of his father, is almost sure to have come into contact with some persons, to whom the modern laxity and latitudinarianism was detestable, an “accursed thing,” an “abomination.” He had, beyond a doubt, a good natural disposition; and, while evil influences had little effect upon him, such good influences as fell across his path, strongly affected his mind, and moulded his character. When he ascended the throne, probably at about the age of twenty, he was already a determined adherent of the old faith, and a stern opponent of the laxity, the idolatry, and the heathenism, which had been tolerated or promoted by the three preceding sovereigns.

He found the laxity and heathenism rampant. Everywhere the “high places” attracted a worship which sufficed for most men, and caused the Temple service at Jerusalem to be coldly regarded and attended but by few. Jehovah was nominally worshipped at these sites, but rather as a local than as a universal God, and with rites that were unauthorized, and perhaps even tinged with heathenism. On some of the “high hills” the cult of Baal and Astarte was openly practised; “images” or rather pillars, and “groves,” or rather sacred trees, were set up (1 Kings xiv. 23), and the lewd orgies of Phoenicia and Syria were the favourite religious ceremonies of the worshippers. The sacred groves and Temple precincts were the scenes both of ordinary profligacy and of unnatural vices (ibid. ver. 24; comp. ch. XV. 12), men’s natural repugnance to such a degradation being overcome by a supposed religious sanction.3 Asa set himself against all these various forms of moral evil; and if he did not succeed altogether in suppressing the Jehovistic high-place worship (1 Kings xv. 14), which the people would not give up, at any rate he swept away the grosser forms of sensuous religion—the images, the phallic symbols of Baal, the Astarte emblems, the lewd rites, the companies of abandoned men and abandoned women attached to the chief sites of Baal and Astarte worship. His reformation was extensive, sweeping, so far as his intention and his will went, complete. In Ewald’s words, “As far as he could, he removed from the kingdom all traces of the heathenism which had been either tolerated or promoted by the three preceding sovereigns.”4

The first step towards the accomplishment of his designs, and, perhaps, the most difficult one, was the removal and degradation of the Queen-Mother. Maachah, the grand-daughter of Absalom, had been the leading spirit of the Court during two reigns. As his favourite wife, she had directed the religious policy of Rehoboam; and as his mother, she had exercised a complete domination over his successor, her son, Abijah. A devotee of the Syro-Phcenician religion, she had established her own shrine of Astarte-worship in Jerusalem, and had erected in it an idolatrous emblem, probably of a sensuistic character (1 Kings XV. 13). Asa “destroyed this idol and burnt it by the brook Kidron.” Probably he calcined the metal whereof it was made, and reducing the image to powder, cast the powder upon ae waters of the brook Kidron, that the whole might be dispersed and lost.5 Maachah herself he degraded from her lofty position, depriving her of all authority, and, perhaps, removing her from the Court over which she had so long exercised a baleful influence (1 Kings l. s. c.; 2 Chron. xv. 16). He in this way got rid of a centre of religious corruption which, unless removed, would have vitiated all his efforts after reform, and have afforded a rallying point for the heathenizing party, against which it would have been most difficult to struggle.

Having thus set his own house in order, he proceeded, during the first ten years of his reign, which was a time of continuous peace (2 Chron. xiv. 1, 5), gradually to effect his reforms wherever he found it possible, through the length and breadth of the land It is clear that he met with much opposition, but not very clear who were its leaders. The prophetical order must undoubtedly have been on his side;6 and the Levitical priesthood, which had flocked into the southern kingdom from all parts of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam (2 Chron. xi. 14), would also lend him their aid. His chief difficulty must have been in overcoming local associations and prejudices, engrained by long habit into the hearts of the people, who were everywhere attached to their old provincial shrines and sanctuaries, hallowed to them from a remote antiquity, and endeared by a thousand tender memories. New rites were, comparatively speaking, easy to deal with—“he took away the altars of the strange gods, and brake down the images, and cut down the groves” (ibid. chap. xiv. 3)—but the old ancestral rites connected with the high-place worship would not be rooted out, and whatever steps might be taken by the monarch to destroy and remove and abolish, still the result was, that “the high places were not removed” (1 Kings xv. 14)—“the people offered and burnt incense yet in the high places” (ibid. xxii. 43). Worships which Asa viewed as “abominations” continued in many parts of Judah and Benjamin, as well as in the cities won by his father from Israel (2 Chron. xiii. 19; xv. 8), during the whole of the ten tranquil years which constitute the first period of his reign. The religious reforms of Asa, though occupying so large a share of his attention, still did not entirely engross him, or prevent him from doing his duty as a sovereign in other respects. Particularly, he gave serious thought to the military position of his kingdom, which was without an ally, and surrounded on all sides by enemies. Egypt, his neighbour upon the south, was especially to be feared, as had been sufficiently proved by the expedition of Sheshonk. That prince was now dead; but he had left his crown, and his ambitious projects, to descendants in the direct line,7 and Asa seems to have felt that at any time an attack might come upon him from this quarter. Accordingly he made great efforts to place his little territory in a posture of defence. First of all, like Rehoboam (2 Chron xi. 5-11), he endeavoured to secure his frontier by carefully fortifying all the principal cities, which he strengthened with “walls and towers, gates and bars” (ibid. xiv. 7), to the best of his ability. Then, fully aware that “fenced cities”—“walls and towers” are of no avail without gallant defenders, he collected and organized an army, which is said to have numbered 580,000 men. More than half of them were “men of Judah,” well equipped with spears and large shields; while the remainder were “men of Benjamin,” who carried small round targes, and were expert in the use of the bow. The entire force was held in readiness to meet attack, and was probably disposed chiefly in the frontier towns which had been fortified with so much care. All this was done during the tranquil period of Asa’s reign, through the wise foresight of the king, who knew that national defence is far better organized when peril is remote than when immediate danger threatens.

It was not very long before the prudence of these proceedings became apparent. In the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign Judæa was suddenly invaded by “a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen” (2 Chron. xvi. 8), under the command of a leader who is called “Zerah (or Zerakh8) the Ethiopian.” The number of the invading army is estimated at “a thousand thousand” (ibid. xiv. 9), or a million of men. It was composed mainly of Ethiopians and Libyans, and it fell upon Judæa on the south or rather the south-west. There can be no reasonable doubt that the army issued from Egypt, and was sent or led by an Egyptian Pharaoh with the view of effecting conquests in Southwestern Asia. It was a sequel to the expedition of Sheshonk. As Sheshonk had attacked Rehoboam with an army chiefly composed of mercenary soldiers, Ethiopians, Libyans, and Sukkiim (2 Chron. xii. 3), so now an army almost identically composed (ibid. xvi. 8), was sent against Asa. It is impossible to determine absolutely who was the leader. The Hebrew “Zerakh” may, perhaps, represent the Egyptian “Usarkin” or “Osarkon,” and the expedition may have been conducted by Osarkon the Second in person, as that against Rehoboam was conducted by Sheshonk. Or Zerah may have been an Ethiopian general, employed by the Egyptian Pharaoh to take the command of his troops and attempt the subjugation of Judæa.9 The march appears to have lain along the usual coast route, by way of Gaza and Ascalon. This route conducted to the valley of Zephathah—the broad plain at the foot of the Judæan hills west of Zeita and Marash (Mareshah). It was here that Asa met his enemy. From the high ground, whence he commanded a full view of the hostile army, after prayer to God (2 Chr. xiv. 11), he poured down gallant bands of free Jews and Benjamites upon the mercenary host opposed to him, which was at least double his strength; and, after a short combat, gained a complete and decisive victory. The Ethiopians were smitten, and fled before Asa and before Judah (ibid. ver. 12); their host melted away, and rapidly withdrew beyond the borders of Judæa into the comparative desert south of Gaza, where was the Philistine city of Gerar, which gave a shelter to the shattered remnant. Asa pursued them up to the walls, conquered all the small towns in the neighbourhood of the city, captured a vast number of cattle, sheep, and camels (ibid. ver. 15), and returned with an immense booty to Jerusalem.

The victory had most important consequences. It put an end to Egyptian schemes of Asiatic conquest, if not for ever, at any rate for three centuries.1011

The Kings of Israel and Judah

Table of Contents

Preface

Rehoboam

Abijah

Asa